to not let dd take part in tomorrows lesson about smoking?

[frankbestfriend]

So, dd came out of school today completely distraught after having a lady come in to talk to the class about smoking.

Dh is a smoker who is extremely considerate of others, he smokes in the garden, and never when we are out and about with dd, even if we are outdoors.

Although I appreciate the need to educate the children about the risks of smoking and encourage them to never start, I feel todays lesson has gone beyond that.

The children were asked to put up their hands if their parents smoke, and then shown pictures of organs cut from the bodies of smokers after their deaths. They were told that this is what will happen to their parents. They were also given homework, to go home and tell their parents about the diseased organs, and point out the various poisons they are inhaling when they smoke.

Dd is traumatised.
I think making them identify themselves as children of smokers in front of the class(dd says people were looking at her and saying eeurgh!) is going too far. Imagine if they had shown the heart of someone with obesity related heart disease and asked them to put their hand up if they had a fat parent

It seems a little militant, and also as if the children are being made to take responsibility for an adults choice.

She is only 7 and has been beside herself with worry tonight. Tomorrow she has to go into the lesson and report back on her dad's response, and I really don't want her to have to go through this again.

So, AIBU? I know I am probably about to be bashed to death by the anti smoking brigade.

'bundle, I understand your point, but it is not my daughters responsibility to help dh give up smoking, nor should she feel responsible if he does not give up.'

That's just it!

I am an ex-smoker myself and I really hate it.

DH smokes - like you, ALWAYS outside and such.

DD1 hates and nags him about it.

Fair enough.

BUT you are right in that youngish children really do feel responsible for the actions of adults. For example, when parents split up, they often feel it's somehow their fault. It's often very hard to convince them otherwise. Ditto when someone dies or when something bad happens.

And that is what is wrong with programmes like this. It's a known fact that children don't think like adults, I mean, duh!, and part of that is that most don't understand probability, can't separate reality from fantasy as well as adults and often assume others' behaviour is linked directly to themselves.

Any education programme that doesn't recognise this has no place in teaching children this young.

I can see this has generated a lot of interest. I would be, to coin a mumsnet cliche "incandescent with rage" if this happened at my DDs school. The school have sent this little girl home with the message that her daddy is going to die! This is the nanny state gone mad and you coudlnt get more anti smoking than me - i even tell people in the park to smoke elsewhere if they insist on smoking around my DD2.

By cornsilk on Wed 01-Oct-08 20:46:14
Anything that puts my kids off smoking is fine by me.

The thing is, with some children it doesn't matter what you tell them - My DD1 smokes and it breaks my heart. I can't stand it when i can smell cigarrettes on her but there is nothing i can do, she is 18 and left home. She is not stupid, i have explained to her in graphic detail what every cigarrette does to her body. Moreover, she had to watch her Grandad, who was more like her Dad die from smoking related illnesses. Totally 100% because he smoked he is now not here to watch DD2 grow up (he never even met her) He had dementia due to arterial thickening, he had several heart attacks and eventually died from lung cancer. She still smokes It is beyond me. Why would anyone do this to themselves. It is a filthy disgusting, damaging habit that drains the NHS of funds. I cannot believe it is still legal. BUT it is and none of this justifies what happened at the OPs DD's school - i would be having stern words with the head if this were my daughter.

Maybe though, just maybe the OPs husband might consider giving up now though?

I know, I'm sorry

I feel so sorry for your DD. My parents smoked my Dad quite a lot and still smokes and my Mum on and off (mostly on).My Nan died of lung cancer when I was 10 and I spent the rest of my childhood and youth obsessing about my Dad getting lung cancer. I took in the messages from school but I was powerless to stop my parents smoking - if his Mum having a lingering death did not stop him then nothing was going to. I was truely scared witless for years.

It only stopped when my Mum died of breast cancer and it made me realise that the horrible things in life usually come out of the blue and that life is too short to try and live someone elses. Not something a 7 year old can be expected to comprehend and I feel really angry on her and your behalf.

My sister is killing herself with food.

Right now.

She has developed serious health problems from obesity.

Shall I nag her about her weight? Show her kids pictures of clogged arteries and cancer-ridden organs and tell them that's what will happen to their mother?

Obesity has now surpassed smoking as a leading preventable cause of death in some parts of the US as smoking rates have fallen due to successful campaigns.

Is this the next thing to demonise and terrorise little kids about?

It's wrong to do this to little kids.

I dont think that children should be kept in denial about what their parents are doing to their health, but it does sound (only read first few posts) that its a little graphic and harsh for their age.

I also worry about the impact of dh not responding to dds requests to stop smoking.

If school are telling her she has to try and make him stop, and yet he continues, will she conclude he in fact does not love her enough to stop?

She is not old enough to understand the strength of addiction, and I don't want her to interpret his failure to quit as a reflection on his feelings for her, iyswim.

Placing this responsibility on her is a very dangerous and emotionally damaging road to travel.

Agree completely with all who have said that children must not be made to feel responsible for the health of their parents.

It is too great a burden for them.

I vaguely remember watching a pretty horrible video about the effect on the organs of smoking - and then going on to stick posters around the house saying "no smoking" etc - i would have been about 7 and i don't remember being particularly traumatised by the experience. However my dad did give up smoking as a result and has never smoked since - (didnt work on my mum). I guess it is not nice to see the effects if your parent is a smoker and they perhaps should not have singled children out but instead allowed them to interpret / react to the information as they wished and ensured that the children were capable of coping with such information. Its difficult to know at what age it would be best to start delivering this - but i'm sure there are some children already at risk of experiementing with smoking at not much older than 7??? Not sure if that is accurate but just a thought.

My dh was hooked by the time he was 12. I can't find a good up to date survey of smoking habits in children, but here is an interesting study, which suggests that 14% of children experiment with cigarettes prior to the age of 11, and that even if they don't at that point start smoking they are more likely to do so later. info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/archive/pressreleases/2006/may/161548
Statistically speaking children of smokers are more likely to start smoking than the general population, here is an interesting, although a bit jargony article about that:
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/456476_2. Some interesting facts are that mothers who smoke are more likely to have daughters that smoke (girls who associate smoking with intimacy are more likely to start smoking and less likely to stop. However if parents smoke but tell their children not to, this reduces the risk, and in general "hands on parents" cited as TLC(!) in one study are less likely to have children that smoke (I guess that one is fairly self explanatory).

Expat re the obesity messages, at present these are focussed on healthy eating, increasing exercise etc, but it's very early days for this programme. Efforts to try to prevent children from starting smoking have been around for a very long time, the obesity issue is much more recent. Maybe shock tactics will be used in time, but I would have to be done incredibly carefully because of the risk of other eating disorders. Smoking is a much simpler message because it is just fags = bad, whereas food, mostly, is good in moderation.

frank, glad the link helped. Sorry the head is being so wet but your letter sounds v. good.

Nooka, your line 'many of us would like smoking to be stamped out, few I think would like to stamp on smokers' is brilliant. (Although going by past threads, there are plenty of people who would be quite happy to stamp on smokers.)

what was the name of the cbbc programme to get kids to help their parents stop smoking?

There have been times edam, there have been times

I'd forgotten about that, cupsoftea, but I did think it was very dodgy.